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Ask HN: Successful one-person non-SaaS online businesses?

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21–29 of 29 posts

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person non-SaaS online businesses?

#21
When i sold my last SaaS (got tired of infrastrucure and customer management) i took some of the money and invested in stock for an online shop.

Its not paying all my bills yet, however i think i am one of the few small fish who actually made profit in this corona chaos without selling faulty masks.

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person non-SaaS online businesses?

#22

My site Office Snapshots operated as a one-person business for just about 10 years, though I now have several employees. It is an office design website I started for fun in 2007 to highlight the offices of interesting companies. At that time it was quite common to start a blog with a single and very niche focus. Over time it has grown into (probably) the largest office design site online and it a household name in th…

Hey, i'm an avid user of your site and it's amazing! I love killing time by taking a look at offices and dreaming of when i'll set up mine one day if my startup succeeds :)

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person non-SaaS online businesses?

#25
post #15

Still early on (I launched during the pandemic), but my make-at-home dog treat mix business is rapidly heading in the right direction and should hit profitability early next year. That said, that's in large part because it's just me and I'm not paying myself. I came from enterprise SaaS before this, and on the one hand it's great to be dealing with something tangible. Every time I get the Shopify notification on my p…

Hey, I remember coming across this before on HN! I don't have a dog, but I liked your site, story, and product. Glad to hear it's going well. By the way, one significant issue I just noticed: if I visit your site on a phone, the name of the company is not visible anywhere near the top of the page. I see the logo has the company name, but it's tiny and not able to be read.

Thanks for the kind words and the heads up - I'll take a look at that today.

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person non-SaaS online businesses?

#26
post #5

IIRC Plenty of Fish was doing like ~1m/y in ad revenue before the guy started hiring people in 2008. Probably a less viable option now given the ad landscape, but that one always stuck with me as a solo founder success story with a nontraditional path.

The Plenty of Fish story (for those unfamiliar): https://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/and-the-money-comes-ro... Circa 2009 "Today, according to the research firm Hitwise, his creation is the largest dating website in the U.S. and quite possibly the world. Its traffic is four times that of dating pioneer Match" "Until 2007, Frind had a staff of exactly zero. Today, he employs just three customer service workers, who…

He didn't add new features?

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person non-SaaS online businesses?

#27
I run an online marketplace selling digital study notes and taking a commission. It's provided most of my income for the past 10 years, often exceeding a developer's salary. I've got a YouTube video where I talk about the MVP and growing it in the early days: https://youtu.be/aKXlZz-wbmg

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person non-SaaS online businesses?

#28
post #3

I run a website that helps people settle in Germany [0]. It's monetised through affiliate income, mostly from insurance and banking products. If you move here, you need health insurance and a bank account. It's not a very demanding job, since most of the content is evergreen. The website could run for months without attention, but I enjoy making the website a little better every day. I love being able to provide so m…

Just wanted to comment and say you have some top-quality content. Your information about running a website in Germany[0] was an enlightening read (especially the part about the Impressum)

[0] https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/website-compliance-germany

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person non-SaaS online businesses?

#29

I run an online marketplace selling digital study notes and taking a commission. It's provided most of my income for the past 10 years, often exceeding a developer's salary. I've got a YouTube video where I talk about the MVP and growing it in the early days: https://youtu.be/aKXlZz-wbmg

Your write ups and Vidoes are ahmazing. Working on my own rails app and intend copy paste your SEO techniques literally into my code. With your permission ofcourse
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